Black Book Talk

Monthly program featuring interviews and discussions of works by African American authors. Co-hosts Emma Jackson Ford, O B Hill and Patricia Welch review works in all genres by well-known and emerging authors. Occasional call-in shows allow audience members to talk directly to authors and/or share their opinions on works by Black authors.

D'Norgia Taylor writes science fiction for all ages and all kinds of people. "A lot of it is about escape -- getting away from whatever the issues...that you want to escape from -- or to." Her latest work, If By Chance, deals with a generational curse that besets a small Pacific Northwest community. This community is plagued by tragedy, humiliation and outrage; so traumatized they keep their stories even to their graves.

Dr. Earl Bracy -- a Vietnam War era combat medic, practicing clinical psychologist, and author of Too Young to Die: Inner-City Adolescent Homicides and The Making of a Psychologist -- has endured prejudice and discrimination the likes of which many Americans, black and white, will never know.

Repeat - By popular demand we repeat our June interview with legendary author Maya Angelou. In her new book, Mom & Me & Mom, the writer shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. Angelou's mother, Vivian Baxter, was an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.

Legendary author Maya Angelou shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother in her new book, Mom & Me & Mom. Angelou's mother, Vivian Baxter, was an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told.

HBO. CNN. BET. These cable stations have revolutionized our television viewing experience and our culture as a whole. In 1979, cable was still an emerging technology, but one that brothers Clinton and Carl Galloway knew was worth pursuing.

Author Jonathan R. Miller writes literary fiction thrillers that include multicultural or biracial characters and themes. His latest work, Delivery, features a biracial Somali man who is blinded while defending his daughter. Ambojeem, the protagonist, settles in the relative calm of Minnesota, hoping to find a proper, peaceful home. Instead, he stumbles into a world where black market surgeries, kidnappings, and murder are the norm. Along the way, he meets a little girl whose father has made plans for one of her vital organs, and Ambo must find a way to help the child while ensuring that he doesn't fall victim to the father's crazed ambitions himself.

Hosts Patricia Welch, O.B. Hill, and Emma Jackson Ford speak with Cheryl Waiters. In her inspiring memoir, "Blood, Sweat, and High Heels," Cheryl Waiters chronicles her struggles and victories as an African American female working to overcome gender and racial biases in the male-dominated field of construction. Set against a backdrop of racial tensions, civil unrest and social movements, Waiters takes readers along on her life journey through the years of JFK, Martin Luther King, Women’s Liberation and Black Panther Movements. Cheryl Waiters has been a professional electrician for the past twenty-two years. She topped out as a journeyman and holds the distinction of working on some of America’s most important landmarks.

Today Black Book Talk presents a program from their archives featuring author and academic Dr. David Imhotep discussing his book, The First Americans Were Africans which asserts that Africans were the first Americans and that they arrived 51,000 years prior to the Mongolians.

“Africans not only came before Columbus, but were in the Americas long before any other group, at least 56,000 years ago,” says Imhotep. “With this book, I produce and expand on evidence from several scientific fields, credible scholars, professors and researchers.”

ABOUT BLACK FOLK DON’TBlack Folk Don’t is a satirical documentary web series in its second season that challenges common stereotypes through interviews with black people of varying ages and backgrounds on a variety of topics. Directed and produced by Angela Tucker, Black Folk Don’t is a project of TuckerGurl Productions, with funding provided by the National Black Programming Consortium at BlackPublicMedia.org, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For more information and to watch online visit blackfolkdont.com and BlackPublicMedia.org.

ABOUT ANGELA TUCKER Angela Tucker is a writer, director, and producer whose career has included feature length films, documentary and fiction shorts, web series, advocacy videos, and PSAs. Her directorial work includes (A)sexual, a feature length documentary about people who experience no sexual attraction, and Black Folk Don’t, a satirical documentary web series that challenges common stereotypes. She is a Co-Producer on The New Black, the Series Producer for PBS documentary series AfroPop. Tucker is based in Brooklyn, NY and can be followed on Twitter @tuckergurl. For more information visit tuckergurl.tumblr.com/.

Pitts’ work has appeared in such publications as Musician, Spin, Reader’s Digest and Parenting. He wrote, produced and syndicated Who We Are, an award-winning 1988 radio documentary about the history of Black America, and has written and produced numerous other radio programs on subjects as diverse as Madonna and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 2004, Pitts was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. In 2009 and 2002, GLAAD Media awarded Pitts the Outstanding Newspaper Columnist award. In 2002, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists awarded Pitts its inaugural Columnist of the Year award. Other recognitions include the prestigious ASNE Award for Commentary Writing from the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Feature of the Year—Columnist award from Editor and Publisher magazine, both in 2001.

Millions of readers were initially introduced to Pitts through a column he penned in response to the 9/11 attacks. His defiant, open letter to the terrorists circulated the globe, generating 30,000 emails, and has since been set to music, reprinted in poster form, and quoted on television and radio.

"Black Book Talk's" February interview is with Heidi W. Durrow, the New York Times best-selling author of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky(Algonquin Books). The novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy.

With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to Portland, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

Chosen as this year's "Eveybody Reads" selection, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky received the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change, and has been hailed as one of the Best Novels of 2010 by the Washington Post, a Top 10 Book of 2010 by The Oregonian, a Top 10 Buzz Book of 2010 by the Boston Herald and named a Top 10 Debut of 2010 by Booklist. Heidi was nominated for an 2011 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Debut.

Dr. Thabiti Lewis, author of Ballers of the new school : race and sports in America, will share insights into the realities of race in sport culture. Ballers of the New School is one of the first and best books to come along that effectively explains contemporary athletes and the public response to them. It challenges the well-worn narrative of sport as America's most significant site of racial progress by scrutinizing the true role of sport in mobilizing and shaping definitions, social relations, and public life. American sport culture performs and propagates rituals, symbols, and expressions of fear and difference that sustain racism, and notions of racial supremacy and block bridges to racial progress.

Dr. Lewis is the guest speaker at the opening of "Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience." This travelling exhibit, presented by Multnomah County Library, tells the story of black baseball players over the past century and a half. The exhibition also looks at the origins of the sport and the history of baseball and race relations in Oregon.

Monthly discussion of books by African-American authors. Hosted by Emma Jackson Ford ("Bookwoman"), O B Hill, historian and bookseller, and Patricia Welch ("Library Lady"), program features interviews by local and nationally known writers. This is a round-table discussions of favorite books by three co-hosts.

Hosts Patricia Welch, Emma Jackson Ford and O.B. Hill, interview Lillian Whitlow about her book A Soldier Without a Country: Based on the Life of Sgt. Carlis Calvin.

"A Soldier Without A Country tells the story of Sgt. Carlis Calvin's struggle to survive after he was given a dishonorable discharge by his captain, after he was accused of stealing approximately $3.00 worth of food from his mess hall. After he served several months in the stockade, he was stripped of his medals and uniform and was told not to come back on the post again. He endured hardships for forty-seven years. In 1996 President Bill Clinton restored his honorable discharge and his medals were returned."

Hosts Patricia Welch, O.B. Hill and Emma Jackson Ford speak with former Oregon State Senator Avel Gordley about her memoir Remembering the Power of Words. Avel Gordly is the first African American woman elected to the Oregon State Senate. Remembering the Power of Words is the inaugural volume in the Women and Politics in the Pacific Northwest Series, and recounts the personal and professional journey of Ms. Gordly. OSU Press describes the book as:

a brave and honest telling of Gordly’s life. She shares the challenges and struggles she faced growing up black in Portland in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as her determination to attend college, the dedication to activism that took her from Portland to Africa, and her eventual decision to run for a seat in the state legislature.

That words have power is a constant undercurrent in Gordly’s account and a truth she learned early in life.

Important as a biographical account of one significant Oregonian’s story, the book also contributes “broader narratives touching on Black history (and Oregon’s place within it), and most particularly the politics associated with being an African American woman,” according to series editor Melody Rose.